Nordiques or Avalanche? Franchise Identities in A-Squad

A bucket in A-Squad is a franchise, a decade and an identity, and the identity changes only when the team moves to a new city. A rename in the same building does not count: the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim became the Anaheim Ducks in 2006, the Phoenix Coyotes became the Arizona Coyotes in 2014 and the Utah Hockey Club became the Utah Mammoth in 2025, and each stayed one identity. Toronto’s Arenas, St. Patricks and Maple Leafs are one identity from 1917 to today for the same reason.

Each bucket takes the name that played the most games inside it, which produces some labels worth knowing. Toronto St. Patricks 1920s covers every Toronto season from 1917-18 to 1929-30 because the St. Patricks played most of them, and Detroit Cougars 1920s is the Red Wings before they were Red Wings. A move, though, is a clean break: the season a club arrives in its new city starts a new identity, so a player who crossed with the team appears in two buckets, each holding only the seasons he played under that name.

Four franchises moved in the 1990s, and each one splits that decade in two. All eight buckets are in the regular spin pool, so you will meet them often.

The pattern continues later. Atlanta Thrashers 2000s and Winnipeg Jets 2010s are the same franchise on either side of the 2011 move, and Arizona Coyotes 2020s ends with 2023-24, the club’s final season.

Winnipeg has had two NHL teams called the Jets, and they are not the same franchise. The NHL records the 1979 to 1996 Jets as the franchise that became the Phoenix, later Arizona, Coyotes, and all of that club’s history travelled to the desert. The Jets who returned in 2011 are the former Atlanta Thrashers, and their official history begins in 1999. Our data follows the NHL, so Winnipeg Jets (1979) 1980s and Winnipeg Jets 2010s share nothing but a city.

The Coyotes raise one more wrinkle. When their hockey operations were sold in April 2024 and the players went to Salt Lake City, the NHL treated Utah as a brand-new franchise rather than a continuation of Arizona, and we follow that stance. Utah Hockey Club 2020s is its own bucket, currently two seasons and the smallest in the regular pool; its label will switch to the Mammoth name once the Mammoth have played more of the bucket’s games than the Hockey Club did.

Three franchises moved in the 1970s, and two of them moved more than once. The Kansas City Scouts lasted two seasons, 1974-75 and 1975-76, then became the Colorado Rockies for six seasons before settling in New Jersey as the Devils in 1982. In our data that lineage runs Kansas City Scouts 1970s, Colorado Rockies 1970s, Colorado Rockies 1980s, New Jersey Devils 1980s and on through today; the Rockies’ two 1980s seasons stay a separate bucket because two seasons is enough not to fold.

The Seals are three names in one franchise. Oakland Seals 1960s covers the first three seasons from 1967-68; the 1970 renaming to California Golden Seals was a rename in place, so California Golden Seals 1970s carries on from there; then the 1976 move creates Cleveland Barons 1970s, two seasons of roughly forty players before the Barons merged into the Minnesota North Stars in 1978. The Atlanta Flames are the tidy case: eight seasons from 1972-73, one whole bucket, and Calgary Flames 1980s begins cleanly with 1980-81.

Cutting history at decade lines and again at relocations leaves fragments: a club that arrives in 1979-80 has one lonely 1970s season, and a club that moves in 2011 leaves one 2010-11 season behind under its old name. We do not want buckets that small, so a single-season segment is folded into the same identity’s previous decade if that exists, otherwise into its next decade, and failing both into the largest bucket the franchise has in that decade.

The Atlanta Thrashers show all of it at once. They entered in 1999-2000, a lone 1990s season, and finished in 2010-11, a lone 2010s season; both fold into Atlanta Thrashers 2000s, which therefore runs eleven seasons. The four WHA clubs that joined in 1979-80 fold that season forward the same way, and in the founders pool the St. Louis Eagles’ single 1934-35 season sits inside Ottawa Senators (1917) 1930s, because the Eagles were the old Senators in a new city.

There is one honest exception. The Philadelphia Quakers played a single season, 1930-31, as the relocated Pittsburgh Pirates, and no neighbouring Quakers bucket exists to absorb them, so Philadelphia Quakers 1930s stands as a one-season founders bucket of about seventeen players. The Montreal Wanderers went the other way: their six games of 1917-18 were too few for any skater to earn a card, so the Wanderers appear in our records but have no bucket you can spin.

Relocation buckets can be small. A ten-season bucket for a stable franchise often holds 100 to 150 players; Carolina Hurricanes 1990s holds fewer than fifty, Minnesota North Stars 1990s about the same, and Utah Hockey Club 2020s fewer still. Small is not bad, it is different: the top of the list is usually still strong, but the drop-off after it is steeper.

The roster sheet shows the player count beside the position filters, so check it before you commit. If the bucket is thin and your goaltender slot is still open, take the goalie now rather than hoping a deeper bucket comes along. The drafting guide covers slot order; here the only rule is that a franchise move is a fork in the road, and the two branches are rarely the same size.

Everything above concerns the regular spin pool, which starts with the 1950s. The early league is in our data too, and it is full of movement: the Quebec Bulldogs became the Hamilton Tigers in 1920 and folded after a players’ strike in 1925, the Pittsburgh Pirates became the Philadelphia Quakers, the original Ottawa Senators became the St. Louis Eagles, the New York Americans spent a final season as the Brooklyn Americans in 1941-42, and the Montreal Maroons shared a city with the Canadiens from 1924 until they suspended operations in 1938.

Those clubs, and the pre-1950 decades of the Canadiens, Maple Leafs, Bruins, Rangers, Black Hawks and Red Wings, live in the founders pool: twenty-eight buckets in all, from the thirteen-season Ottawa Senators (1917) 1920s to the one-season Quakers. They sit outside the default spin for now; the eras guide covers what hockey looked like in those years.